diff --git a/build/jam/HeadersRules b/build/jam/HeadersRules
index f0b43ed0f3..741342fcc8 100644
--- a/build/jam/HeadersRules
+++ b/build/jam/HeadersRules
@@ -365,11 +365,8 @@ rule FStandardHeaders
 					   kernel media mail midi midi2 net opengl storage support
 					   translation ;
 
-	# GCC headers
-	local headers = $(HAIKU_GCC_HEADERS_DIR) ;
-
 	# Use headers directory, to allow to do things like include <posix/string.h>
-	headers += [ FDirName $(HAIKU_TOP) headers ] ;
+	local headers = [ FDirName $(HAIKU_TOP) headers ] ;
 
 	# Use posix headers directory
 	headers += [ FDirName $(HAIKU_TOP) headers posix ] ;
@@ -395,6 +392,15 @@ rule FStandardHeaders
 		headers += [ FDirName $(HAIKU_TOP) headers cpp ] ;
 	}
 
+	# The compiler dependent headers.
+	# TODO: Actually these directory should be listed before the posix and cpp
+	# directories, since the headers found here are supposed to override some of
+	# the headers in the latter directories. Unfortunately some of our headers
+	# are a bit messy (e.g. stddef.h) and using the compiler headers causes
+	# trouble when using different compilers (gcc 2 vs. gcc 4) and different
+	# host platforms (BeOS vs. Linux).
+	headers += $(HAIKU_GCC_HEADERS_DIR) ;
+
 	return $(headers) ;
 }
 
diff --git a/headers/posix/size_t.h b/headers/posix/size_t.h
index d76a0b2d01..ad466389c1 100644
--- a/headers/posix/size_t.h
+++ b/headers/posix/size_t.h
@@ -1,13 +1,7 @@
-/*
- * Copyright 2008, Haiku Inc. All Rights Reserved.
- * Distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
- */
 #ifndef _SIZE_T_H_
 #define _SIZE_T_H_
 
-#include <stddef.h>
-
-// TODO: ATM gcc's stddef.h defines ssize_t for BeOS.h. We should fix this.
-//typedef long signed int		ssize_t;
+typedef unsigned long       size_t;
+typedef signed long         ssize_t;
 
 #endif /* _SIZE_T_H_ */
diff --git a/headers/posix/stddef.h b/headers/posix/stddef.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..ce7ec9ca6e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/headers/posix/stddef.h
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+#ifndef _STDDEF_H_
+#define _STDDEF_H_
+/* 
+** Distributed under the terms of the OpenBeOS License.
+*/
+#include <null.h>
+
+#if defined(__GNUC__) && __GNUC__ > 3
+#define offsetof(type,member)   __builtin_offsetof(type, member)
+#else
+#define offsetof(type,member) ((size_t)&((type*)0)->member)
+#endif
+
+typedef long ptrdiff_t;
+
+#include <wchar_t.h>
+#include <size_t.h>
+
+#endif	/* _STDDEF_H_ */
diff --git a/headers/posix/wchar.h b/headers/posix/wchar.h
index 6aa23938f8..404dc19f4e 100644
--- a/headers/posix/wchar.h
+++ b/headers/posix/wchar.h
@@ -7,22 +7,11 @@
 #ifndef _WCHAR_H
 #define _WCHAR_H
 
-#include <stddef.h>
+#include <wchar_t.h>
 #include <stdio.h>
 
-// stddef.h is not supposed to define wint_t, but gcc 2.95.3's one does.
-// In all other cases we will do that.
-#ifndef _WINT_T
 #define _WINT_T
-
-#ifndef __WINT_TYPE__
-#define __WINT_TYPE__ unsigned int
-#endif
-
-typedef __WINT_TYPE__ wint_t;
-
-#endif	// _WINT_T
-
+typedef unsigned int wint_t;
 typedef int wctype_t;
 
 typedef struct {
@@ -30,6 +19,7 @@ typedef struct {
 	wint_t	__value;
 } mbstate_t;
 
+#include <size_t.h>
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus
 extern "C" {
diff --git a/headers/posix/wchar_t.h b/headers/posix/wchar_t.h
index 9572a62dc1..5db297e8f1 100644
--- a/headers/posix/wchar_t.h
+++ b/headers/posix/wchar_t.h
@@ -1,7 +1,15 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2008, Haiku Inc. All Rights Reserved.
- * Distributed under the terms of the MIT License.
+ * Copyright (C) 2002 Marcus Overhagen
+ * All rights reserved.
+ *
+ * Distributed under the terms of the MIT license
  */
+#ifndef _WCHAR_T_H
+#define _WCHAR_T_H
+
+#if !defined(__cplusplus) || __GNUC__ < 3
+typedef unsigned short wchar_t;
+#endif
+
+#endif	/* _WCHAR_T_H */
 
-// Include GCC's stddef.h. It defines wchar_t.
-#include <stddef.h>